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Final Approach - B17 Flying Fortress: The Mighty Eighth
By Len "Viking1" HjalmarsonInstallation and Setup
B17 Setup
After the install (around 700MB) one runs the setup and makes some choices about graphics resolution and color depth, sound API and language. The simulation will run all the way up to 1600x1200, but since most will want to run with high detail, only the 1.2GHz machines with GeForce 2 Ultra need apply for the highest settings.
B17 II loves memory. I started out with 128MB and noticed a great deal of disk swapping. Increasing to 194 MB decreased load times and reduced disk swapping. The ideal is 256MB or greater.
There are many choices to make as one enters the game. The Game Options panel takes us to another selection interface. This time our choices are Controls, Graphics, Realism and Difficulty, Sound, and Load/Save Game.
Options Interface
Selecting Realism/Difficulty brings up the next list of choices, amounting to fourteen different selections, including:
- Flak Accuracy
- Enemy Fighter Skill
- Friendly Fighter Skill
- Ammunition Quantity
- Fuel Quantity
- Bomb Damage
- B17 Durability
- Norden Complexity
- Friendly Bullet Strength
- G-Force Effects on Pilot
- Collision Damage
- General Difficulty
- Weather Severity
- Crew Autonomy
- Fighter Gun Convergence
I left the default selections for all options except Crew Autonomy.
Having completed the Realism and Difficulty selection, I went to the Graphics Menu.
There are eight selections on the graphics menu, and I have cropped the lines from the second screen capture and pasted it to the first to show you all the settings in a single image.
Graphics Options Interface
